Pitch to Overland

What we’re after

Overland is always looking for nonfiction pieces, especially for its online magazine. We update the pitch page with subjects that seem interesting – though we consider pitches on any topics. Most of all, we’re looking for thoughtful, provocative and argumentative articles, pieces that will provoke discussion and debate. You can pitch to us on one of the topics below, or submit completed articles (of between 600 and 1000 words) to us via our submissions page. We pay $120 for published online pieces.

It’s time to support refugees. It has been for a while

At last month’s Victorian state Labor conference, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) voted with conservative unions and Labor Right to end conference before a motion supporting the closure of offshore detention centres could be heard. That’s the same CFMMEU that calls for community support when its own officials are threatened with gaol time, and the same union whose members are consistently targetted and scapegoated by a fearmongering Liberal Government.

Why aren’t the unions leading the charge to change Labor’s policy on refugees?

The indefinite horror inflicted by the camps can’t seem to shift the cross-party support for offshore detention. Could anything? Ever?

There will be blood – and it’ll be expensive

This week the Federal Senate passed a Greens bill to remove the GST on tampons and pads. This won’t change much, as the House of Reps, and more specifically the Coalition, will likely vote it down.

Why does the anti-tax Liberal Party support this anti-libertarian and socially targetted tax? Do most Liberals *actually* think pads and tampons are luxury items? Or do they kind of wish women just stayed at home washing reams of cloth and minding the farm when they have their period? Also do they still kind of quietly wish this in general?

Is the future melting?

‘By the way, I am actually a socialist. Just not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive, pretending to do good, while actually causing harm. True socialism seeks greatest good for all.’ – Elon Musk

‘often people working with the existing consciousness are jealous of those who are more in touch and they become hard-core capitalist in hopes of creating the illusion that the value of money is worth more than the value of time and friends’ – Kanye West

‘What is your definition of true freedom? There is no true freedom without economic freedom.’ – Kanye West

‘All music coming out of Yeezy sound has to ride like the new Tesla Yeezy sound is Tesla radio’ – Kanye West

Marx wrote, ‘all that is solid melts into air.’ He probably didn’t mean his own ideas. But it fits, historically. Are rich celebs melting socialism into ego-driven vapidity, or in a knock-about way, advancing the cause? Who’s still reading Marx?

How to pitch to us

If you want to pitch an article, we ask you to do so through our online submission system. Overland relies on its subscribers for support: subscribers should use this link to pitch; non-subscribers should use this one.

The submission system will ask you to explain your proposed article in around 100 words and should address the following: What will your piece be about and why are you the person to write it? How will your article be different from other writing on the subject? When will you be able to send the finished piece?

Make sure that your deadline is realistic – if we accept your pitch, we are committing to publishing the article only so long as we receive publishable copy by the specified time and date.

If you can provide links to examples of your writing (whether in other publications or on your own site), please do so.